


Long Time Coming

by finereluctance



Series: Long Time Coming [1]
Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 12:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1005181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finereluctance/pseuds/finereluctance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-series.  Duke has an early morning visitor to the Cape Rouge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Time Coming

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've written for this fandom, so apologies if it's crap.

It was early morning when Duke made his way up to the main deck of the Cape Rouge. With winter looming there was more than an hour before the sun would rise, but he was a businessman and there were things to do and such meetings didn’t wait for sunrise. Neither did exhausted police detectives, apparently, Duke noted as he stepped onto the deck and pulled his worn cardigan across his chest at the sudden blast of cold air. A cold front had settled in during the night, but Nathan just stood on the deck without anything more than a thin windbreaker to protect his skin.

“Mornin’ Nathan… something I can do for you at this hour?” Duke asked innocently, a cheerful tone in his voice despite the early morning. Playing stupid, especially when it didn’t look like Nathan had slept in a day or two, was always the safest route to avoid issues with his favorite Haven police officer.

Nathan looked like shit when he turned to look at Duke properly, dark circles beneath his eyes and his lips tinged blue in the deck light. “It’s snowing,” was the quiet response that came, though it didn’t answer his question.

A few snowflakes were indeed falling, leaving the finest layer of frost across the deck and rails, but Duke didn’t look away from Nathan as he approached the other man. “How long have you been out here?”

Nathan shrugged. “I don’t really know… a few hours?”

“Shit, Nate. You’ve got to be freezing.” Duke told himself he didn’t care if Nathan was stupid enough to freeze to death, that he was only concerned about the son of Haven’s police chief ending up dead on his boat because there would be no way to get out of that mess. He closed the distance between them to touch Nathan’s cheek with the back of his hand, telling himself that it was only to see how cold he was, but he let his hand linger there on the frozen skin. Nathan didn’t even react to the touch, but standing so close Duke realized just how badly Nathan shivered as his teeth chattered. “Come on, you’re going to freeze to death if you stay out here.”

Without thinking about it, because really there was no decision or choice to be made, Duke took Nathan by the arm and dragged him towards the main cabin. Forced to walk, Nathan followed quietly, which was an even bigger sign to Duke that something was wrong. Nathan never let Duke lead without a fight. “Sit,” Duke ordered when they were inside, directing Nathan to the couch as he grabbed a stack of blankets to pile on top of him. “You’re getting tea because I’m out of coffee. Don’t complain.”

Duke retreated to the relative safety of the kitchen, putting much needed distance between them as he put the kettle on the stove, though he kept one eye on his not-quite-friend. Duke and Nathan had been a lot of things over the years, ranging from the bully and the bullied, to acquaintances and even confidantes, but they were never quite friends. And now, well they were the cop and the smuggler and each had spent the best part of a year stepping carefully so as not to disrupt that balance. After he had spent a decade away from Haven, it was no surprise that there were bad feelings there. He hadn’t left on the best of terms, after all.

A lot changed in that ten years. Nathan ended up back in Haven, working for his father at the police department. He had filled out the beanpole frame of his teenage years, building up just the right amount of muscle to look good, and with a regular shadow of scruff across his jaw there were few traces of the teenager Duke had been attracted to once upon a time. The years looked good on Nathan, though, and Duke would have been blind not to notice. If anything, it made it that much harder when Duke came back because if Nathan didn’t hate him so much, he would have already made a pass at him.

Nathan, for his part, seemed oblivious to Duke watching him as burrowed into the nest of blankets and showed the first signs of looking after himself. He toed off his boots, leaving them on the floor as he pulled his long legs up into the tangle of blankets.

In the kitchen, Duke turned his back to hide his smile. Some things may have changed, but clearly Nathan’s habit of curling up to keep warm hadn’t. He’d done that for as long as Duke could remember, which happened to be preschool nap time with Nathan curled up next to him clutching a stuffed dog while he slept. Through elementary school sleepovers and camping trips Nathan had always slept the same way, even if the stuffed dog had disappeared as the years passed. 

He couldn’t avoid Nathan much longer once the tea was done, so with two cups in hand he walked carefully back to the main part of the cabin and sat across from Nathan on the coffee table. “Here,” he handed one over and watched Nathan hold it close to his nose and breathe in the steam for a few minutes as it cooled. 

It struck Duke that he should probably be more uncomfortable with the situation. After all, Nathan was a police officer, and there were quite a few less-than-legal items tucked away across the Cape Rouge, but it didn’t bother him at all. If Nathan had been there looking for contraband, he would have found plenty on the deck to arrest Duke. Content in that knowledge, he relaxed and sipped his own tea while he watched the other man.

“You’re going to have to tell me what you’re doing here, eventually,” Duke reminded him. “You don’t usually come around in the middle of the night to stand on my boat and freeze to death, which makes me think something is up.”

Nathan took a gulp of his tea and Duke flinched because that cup could not have been cool enough to drink so much. As if a light bulb was turned on, Duke set his own cup next to him and leaned closer to look at Nathan. “Nate, that’s it, isn’t it? You couldn’t feel the cold.”

It was Nathan’s turn to flinch and his hands shook so badly Duke had to take the cup away from him or risk it being spilled or dropped. 

“Is it the Troubles again?” Duke asked softly. The Troubles were nothing to be messed with. Duke’s family might not have them, but that didn’t make him stupid. He knew that the Troubles existed, he knew exactly what that meant for Nathan, and if they were back, well he had made a final promise to his father that he intended to keep. “I heard they would come back someday.”

“Duke…” Nathan murmured quietly, nodding while the blanket muffled the rest of his sentence as he drew it tightly around his neck.

“Shit,” he swore quietly. “I’m sorry, man.” And he really was. For all that he had tormented Nathan when they were kids, there was nothing worse Duke could imagine than losing the ability to feel anything at all. Duke was a tactile person. He liked to touch and be touched, and even as a child he touched Nathan’s shoulder or back when he knew the other boy wouldn’t be able to feel it. As he got older and Nathan’s trouble went away, he found excuses to touch Nathan. A light push, a playful bump of the shoulders, anything at all that made the other boy react to his touch. Even now Duke wanted to touch, wanted Nathan to react to him, but it was too late. 

Nathan shrugged miserably. “Thanks for the blankets.”

Duke looked at him a minute longer before he made an impulsive decision and pushed lightly at Nathan’s shoulders. “Scoot back,” he mumbled and kicked off his own boots before he joined Nathan on the couch. After a minute of fumbling, they ended up laying face to face on the couch beneath layers of blankets. It was on the edge of too hot for Duke, but Nathan was still cold to the touch when Duke moved closer still to warm him.

“Duke…” Nathan murmured quietly, no reaction to Duke’s arm over his waist to hold on and keep them close in the cocoon of warmth.

“Shh,” Duke whispered in the small distance between them and avoided Nathan’s gaze. “You need to get warm.”

There was no fight from Nathan, who just ducked his head to burrow his face against Duke’s neck and sighed quietly.

As the sun rose over Haven the snow fell all morning on the Cape Rouge, but inside the cabin two men drifted into a quiet, contented sleep. There may have been things to do, but that meeting trumped anything else Duke had to do that day.


End file.
